Eating Behavior Changes of People with Obesity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

OBJECTIVE: The precautions taken during the pandemic period may cause stress-related eating behavior disorders. It was aimed to test this hypothesis, and the study was carried out to examine pandemic measures the effect of on the nutritional, depression and stress conditions of people with obesity. METHODS: The individuals who participated in the study were people with obesity who received follow-up dietary therapy in a private hospital. Three separate scales were applied to the individuals, which measured the desire to overeating request, depression status and stress-fighting status. RESULTS: This study was conducted on 368 individuals. Women had lower values of BMI (28.57±3.89 kg/cm(2)) than men (30.64±2.87 kg/cm(2)). When the scores of the excessive eating request scale mean scores before and during the pandemic were examined, it was seen that the scores of the individuals increased during the pandemic. In the multivariate regression model, it was seen that the increase of stress and BMI increased the FCQ score (p<0.001). Multiple regression models were created by taking into account the criteria that caused the score increase. Each variable can predict the FCQ score separately. The predictor significance order of variants on FCQ score β values is as follows: the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) (β=0.774), before pandemic FCQ (β=0.601), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) (β=−0.268), before pandemic BMI(a) (β=−0.223), during pandemic BMI(b) (β=0.073), and age (β=−0.013). CONCLUSION: COVID-19 pandemic, making applications such as quarantine in pandemic processes has successful results in being able to combat its. However, undesirable conditions such as stress can have serious negative consequences on other health measurements. It was observed in the results of this study that excessive eating food desire developed in people with obesity.